WHAT FALLS OFF YOU WHEN YOU GET BUMPED? 

WHAT FALLS OFF YOU WHEN YOU GET BUMPED? 

An Accidental Discovery in My Backyard 

My son and I planted a couple of dark purple trees in our backyard years ago. I wish I could tell you I knew exactly what kind of trees they were. I did not. Frankly, we planted them because they looked good. A few years later, these strange little fruits started showing up. So, like any responsible father, I picked one off and made my eight-year-old son eat it. 

I know. I know. I know. 

This could have gone sideways. 

Thankfully, it didn’t. But it did allow us to discover that we had plum trees. And from that point on, we started taking advantage of having our own tiny Eden just outside the patio door. 

We quickly learned that if you pick plums too early, you’re eating a super, super tart fruit. The goal is to grab them at supreme ripeness…and here’s our secret for doing so. We hold a towel underneath the branches and give the tree a good shake. The ripe plums safely fall because they’re ready. 

And that my friends is the hook for this article’s question:  

What fruit falls off me when I get bumped? 

Because life has a way of shaking the tree. 

Someone cuts you off in traffic. Your roommate does that thing you’ve asked them five times not to do. Someone leaves you on read. Your boss overlooks your contribution. Someone criticizes you. A loved one gets sick. 

Or maybe something really dangerous happens…Someone praises you. 

We all get bumped. The question isn’t whether life will shake the branch. 

The question is what falls off when it does. 

Paul, Galatia, and a Church Trying Really Hard 

This is part of what makes Galatians 5 so fascinating to me. 

Galatia wasn’t a city. It was a region in what is now modern-day Turkey, and Paul had helped establish communities of Jesus followers there. But after Paul left, other teachers arrived and began telling these Gentile believers that faith in Jesus wasn’t quite enough. If they really wanted to belong to God’s covenant people, they needed to adopt practices associated with the Mosaic law. 

You can understand why Paul was slightly fired up. 

His concern wasn’t that God’s law was bad. His concern was that they were adding something to the work of Jesus as the basis for belonging to God.  

(Read that again) 

Paul spends much of Galatians arguing that we are justified through faith in Christ, not through keeping the Mosaic law. 

Then, in chapter five, Paul turns toward a practical question: If we aren’t transformed by keeping the law, then what does? 

His answer is the Holy Spirit. 

Paul writes, “Walk by the Spirit.” The Greek word translated “walk,” peripateō, describes an ongoing way of life. Paul isn’t talking about having an occasional spiritual moment. He is describing a life continually lived with and directed by the Spirit of God. 

Then Paul describes the “works of the flesh.” What strikes me is how relational so many of them are: jealousy, anger, selfish ambition, division and envy. Our spiritual condition has an annoying habit of showing up in how we treat actual human beings. 

Then Paul changes his language. 

He moves from works of the flesh to fruit of the Spirit. 

The Bump Reveals What Is Growing 

Jesus uses similar imagery in Luke 6:43–45 when he says that a good tree produces good fruit and then explains that what comes out of us reveals what is happening within us: “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” 

In other words, the bump isn’t always the problem. 

Sometimes the bump is the revelation. 

Someone criticizes me and defensiveness comes pouring out – their criticism didn’t create my insecurity. Someone else succeeds and jealousy suddenly appears – their success didn’t manufacture my jealousy. Someone praises me and pride begins swelling inside me – their compliment didn’t create my pride. 

Pressure doesn’t create the fruit. 

It reveals what has been growing. 

Important note: I don’t think our first response to seeing bad fruit should be self-condemnation. Instead, simply pause and take inventory. Because sometimes the bump itself can become an act of God’s grace because it allows us to see something growing inside us that we couldn’t see before. 

Now we can bring it to Jesus. 

You Can’t Manufacture Spiritual Fruit 

Back to my plum trees. 

I have never walked into my backyard and caught those trees straining with everything they have, screaming, “COME ON! PLUMS!” 

“Try harder!” 

“BE A BETTER PLUM TREE!” 

That would be concerning, yet fascinating, for several reasons. 

A healthy tree doesn’t manufacture fruit through effort. Fruit appears because there is life inside the tree. 

Now look at the language Paul uses around the fruit of the Spirit. In verse 16, we “walk by the Spirit.” In verse 18, we are “led by the Spirit.” In verse 25, we “keep in step with the Spirit.”  

That final phrase translates stoicheō, carrying the idea of walking in line with something, ordering our steps according to it. 

And when we focus on this alignment, something grows. 

Fruit. 

It reminds me of an elementary school project we did as a class. We put blue food coloring in a glass of water, then placed a white rose in it. The next day, the blue had already started to transform the white rose to blue.  

The Christian life isn’t primarily about trying harder to act like Jesus. It isn’t a sophisticated sin-management program. It is becoming the kind of person in whom the Holy Spirit is producing the character of Jesus. This can only happen if we’re planting our roots in Him…just like that rose in the blue water.   

So, instead of asking, “How can I be more patient?” perhaps I should also ask, “Am I living connected to the Spirit of God?” 

Don’t Waste the Bump 

This makes me wonder if some of the moments I desperately want God to remove might actually become places where God forms me. 

The difficult coworker could become a laboratory for patience. An uncertain future could become a laboratory for peace. The person I disagree with could become a laboratory for gentleness. Watching someone else receive the opportunity I wanted could become a laboratory for love and goodness. A dating relationship could become a laboratory for self-control and faithfulness. 

Even success can become a laboratory for humility. 

This matters enormously in the marketplace because work shakes the tree constantly. Deadlines, difficult customers, missed promotions, unreasonable bosses, competitive coworkers, financial pressure and unexpected success all have a way of revealing what is growing inside us. 

We often pray, “God, get me out of this.” 

Sometimes I wonder if God is saying, “I want to form something in you through this.” 

That interruption might actually be formation. 

What Has Been Falling Off You? 

So here is the question I’ve been sitting with lately: 

“What has been falling off me when I get bumped?” 

Not what do I want people to see. Not what do I post. Not what version of myself can I maintain when everything is going well. 

What falls when someone shakes the branch? 

The goal isn’t to walk away from Galatians 5 thinking, “Okay, I need to try harder at these nine things.” That misses Paul’s point. Instead, perhaps we need to get quiet enough before God to ask, “What bad fruit has been falling off me lately?” And then, “Holy Spirit, what do You want to grow in me?” 

Don’t hide what you see. Don’t justify it. And don’t sit there shaming yourself over it. 

Bring it to Jesus.